


A Safe Haven

by sillita



Series: Connecting the pieces [1]
Category: Scorpion (TV 2014)
Genre: (kinda), Gen, Origin Story, Trigger warnings:, anxiety attack, creating the team, suicide mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-13
Updated: 2017-03-13
Packaged: 2018-10-04 07:07:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10271048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sillita/pseuds/sillita
Summary: Walter gets a task to find a hacker who managed to get into one of the most secure accounts. Basically, a story about how Walt and Sly met.





	

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, I'm not sure if someone already wrote about the team's origin stories- haven't found anyone's version yet, but I haven't read everything on here (yet ;) ). Still decided that I want to make my own version of it, so here it is :) Hopefully part one of a three-part series, where Walt gets to meet all of his geniuses. 
> 
> I tried to stick to what we already learned about Sly and Walt meeting as much as possible. 
> 
> And as I tried to do research on the hacking parts, I realised how bad I am at understanding technology, so it is highly probable that all computer-related snippets make no sense whatsoever.

The elevator let out a _ding_ as it stopped on the management floor in one of the biggest banks in America. Walter got off and walked through the spacious hall towards the office of Jeremy Spitz, the man he was supposed to communicate directly with while he was working on his "errands", as his employers liked to call them. Walt hated this building, partly because of the hideous coffee-stained carpeted floor, partly because of all the people in the cubicles he was passing by, who stared at their screens blankly in zombie-like mode, without even a dash of interest in their eyes. Walter knew that he could do their work ten times more efficiently than any of them, probably with more excitement as well, especially if he was allowed to develop own algorythms and programmes to help himself on the way. He also knew that he would never be offered this kind of a job at any institution. That was the way it was, he was the "errand guy" and in that bank, Jeremy was the third person he cooperated with - Walter found it highly probable that the two previous men refused to work with him any longer because of the "communication issues".

Finally, Walter got to Mr. Spitz's office. Through the glass door, he saw him talking on the phone and he could have sworn that the man rolled his eyes before turning his moving chair to face away from the door. It took a while for Jeremy's assistant, a very young and very silly girl, to notice Walter waiting and come up to him.

"Mr. Spitz is very busy today, he can't see you now." She explained, with a smile that was supposed to be apologetic. Not that Walter cared about her smile.

"But he called me on. Said it was urgent." He frowned in surprise.

"I have all the documents here." The girl announced cheerfully, handing him a thin, blue folder.  Walter didn't move, so she decided to express her trust in his capabilities. "I'm sure you can handle it without consulting Mr. Spitz, you've done similar jobs before." She declared with a broad smile, but the sentence sounded nothing but condescending to Walter.

"Yes, of course I can handle it, I'm not an idiot." He responded sharply. "Unlike some other people here." He added more quietly, but it was still loud enough to hear.

"Oh..." The girl was left speechless, another reason for Walter to think lowly of her intelligence. She blushed and pushed some of her hair behind her ear. "Okay." She stood in front of Walt for another moment, unsure whether she should continue the unpleasant conversation. At last, she turned around and left without saying another word.

Walter shook his head and walked back to the elevator. While waiting for it to arrive, he opened the folder he was given.

"A hack, of course." He sighed. He was more than capable of tracking any kind of illegal activity that the bank could be concerned with, but the management seemed to think of him as some kind of a computer genius. Which he was, obviously, but that didn't mean his jobs were supposed to be limited to handling hacker attacks solely. "Only $2,500 missing? Why do they care so much?" He raised his eyebrows. He worked on cases concerning hundreds of thousands of dollars, but according to Jeremy _this_ one was considered _urgent_? Something didn't feel right about it. At that moment he noticed a woman standing next to him stare with a curious look, so he closed the folder and decided to take care of his doubts after he got home.

Turning on his laptop was the first thing he did after arriving at his flat. Then he turned the coffee machine on and sat on his unmade bed with the folder in his hands.

"Okay, so $2,500 was transferred via internet to an anonymous account yesterday around 4 pm. Shortly after that, it was withdrawn in person in a branch without video surveillance, of course, I don't understand why would they keep such vulnerable points around in the first place..." He muttered to himself, looking through the documents swiftly. "No more transfers to that account after that, none before, no card connected to it, the only way to identify them is probably to find their IP address..." He continued, as the room filled with a strong smell of coffee. Walter got up and poured himself a cup.  "But _why_ would they worry about that so much? That's not a lot of money, so it's probably just some kid, decent hacking skills and indifferent attitude towards the law at best, but that's all..." He furrowed his brow and looked out of the window, mechanically stirring his coffee, completely lost in thought. "Oh." Walter's eyes widened as realization dawned on him, he slammed his cup on the table, spilling some of his drink on the wooden surface, ran back to his bed, and grabbed the folder.

"He's good." He whispered, staring at the documents. "He withdrew the money directly from the treasury, didn't touch any personal accounts, even I... would have some difficulty doing that." He jumped to his laptop, trying to identify the IP address of the offender and then, possibly his last known location. After at least a few minutes, Walt smiled with satisfaction and wrote down the address. "He's hid well." There was some admiration in his voice, and he was definitely glad to finally meet a decent challenge. Walter reached for his phone, scrolled to Jeremy's number and almost dialed, but then he remembered the disrespectful behavior he faced that morning, got up and put on his jacket instead.

It was nearly an hour later when Walter arrived at a sleazy motel  on the outskirts of the city. He didn't think there was a high probability that the talented hacker would still be in the same place from which he made the transfer yesterday.  He did think, however, there was some chance that a person who withdraws two and a half thousand when they could take millions doesn't really have a specific plan on what to do next. And if they didn't, there was still some hope that they would stay put, working out what they should do next. Walt took out his phone and ran a quick check on the level of Wi-Fi utilization in particular rooms. One of them gave out significantly higher numbers than the others.

"Room 103, let's hope you're still there." Walter mumbled as he approached the door. After a short moment of consideration, he knocked.

There was no response. He knocked again. Still silence. He wanted to leave, but decided to try one last time and as soon as he knocked for the third time, the door opened slowly.

"Who are you?" Walter heard. He didn't even see the person asking through the tiny gap. All he could make out was that it was a man, and a pretty young one.

"I'm Walter O'Brien. I'm a genius and... I think you are, too." However blunt this answer was, it succeeded in getting the boy's attention. The door opened a bit more and Walter could see the guy behind him. He was young, younger than Walt expected, he looked at him with dismay and he scratched his arm very quickly.

"What... what do you mean?" The boy talked quickly and quietly. He kept glancing over Walter's shoulder.

"Let's talk inside, shall we?" Walter suggested. His host hesitated, but in the end he nodded repeatedly, took a deep breath and moved away to let him enter, locking the door afterwards. "What's your name?" Walt asked, while looking around. The room looked like a typical motel room, and at the first sight, there was almost no evidence  of anyone's presence there. Some of the few signs that someone lived there were a piece of foil spread over the chair, some neatly folded clothing on the edge of the bed and a running laptop on the desk. There were also some chocolate bar and chips wrappers stacked evenly on the table. After a more careful observation Walter noticed a small, black plastic bag by the bed, the only object in the room that seemed not to have a carefully picked spot.

"Sy-Sylvester. Sly." The boy stammered.

"Did you hack a bank yesterday?" Walter looked at him calmly.

"Are you the police?" Sylvester asked with a squeaky voice, without glancing back at him, picking at skin around his nails.

"No, of course not." Walt responded. The boy clearly relaxed a little bit.  He even looked up for a moment. "How did you do it?" Walter continued.

"Oh, it was easy, they have a flaw in their database... It was a simple injection attack, well, okay, not that _simple..."_ Sylvester gave him a nervous smile and moved to his computer, "I can show you if you want..."

"No, I know how to hack into a bank." Walter interrupted. Sly looked back at him, surprised.

"You do?"

"Of course, I'm a genius." Walter repeated for a second time in this conversation. "I want to know how you withdrew money from the treasury itself."

"Oh, that..." Sylvester looked disconcerted all of sudden. "I'm afraid that's a secret I'm going to take... to the grave with me." He gave him a thin smile.

"Come on, Sylvester."

"I don't want my legacy to be teaching people how to break into treasury." Sly sounded very uneasy, but very firm at the same time. His hands were shaking and when he noticed that, he pushed them into his pockets. He glanced at the black bag by the bed. "I think you should go."

"Don't you want me to show you how I found you first?" Walter pointed at the laptop and gave Sly a thin smile.

"What?"

"Your IP address. You hid yourself pretty well, it was a challenge. Look..." Walter sat on the chair and pulled the laptop towards himself. Sylvester winced. "Sorry, may I?" Walt looked up.

Sly looked traumatized, but nodded slowly. "Go ahead."

"It wasn't easy, a simple reverse lookup wouldn't suffice...."

"Obviously." Sly cut in quietly.

Walter grinned to himself, without looking back at the boy and opened the command prompt on the laptop. "But there's a catch. Look..." He started to type quickly. Rows of numbers and commands started to appear on the screen and slowly, Sylvester started to move closer to his guest. In the end, he was hanging over his shoulder, looking at the computer with curiosity.

"How do you know all this stuff?" He asked after a few minutes.

"That's a story for another time." Walter got up from the chair. Sly moved it back to the desk immediately and readjusted the laptop's position. "Now, I want some explanations. Why two and a half thousand? Why not a million?"

Sylvester rubbed his neck, staring at the carpet. "I hoped no one would notice."

"And you're evidently out of money already."

The boy didn't confirm, but he did nothing to deny it neither. In fact, he didn't move or say anything at all.

Walter sighed. "I get paying jobs. Doing things like the one I just showed you. I assume you're a quick learner, we could work together. It doesn't pay much, but... You're not listening." He looked at Sly with surprise, as he began walking from wall to wall. "Sylvester?"

For a good minute the room was quiet, apart from the sounds of slow steps and quick breathing from the boy. At last, he stopped and sat down on the bed, face hidden in his hands. "You don't get it."

"What don't I..."

"I can't work with people. I can't work at all. I'm not normal." Sly looked at Walter with teary eyes. "I can never be normal. Do you know how long hacking that bank took me? Twenty hours. I could probably do it in minutes, but I was second guessing every move, checking everything fifteen times. I won't ever work normally. I won't ever _live_ normally. I should probably... _die._ " He glanced at the black bag that was lying just by his feet right now and suddenly he got up, kicking it under the bed on his way. He stopped by the window, facing away from Walt. "Please, just go."

Walter stood awkwardly in silence for a moment. This was _not_ his forte. "I won't." He said quietly. "You can sleep at my place for some time until you get better, and as a genius that you definitely are, you _must_ know that you will get better eventually."

Sly sniffed loudly, but didn't respond and didn't look back at him.

"You _have to_ agree. I can help. I could use someone to work with." Walt added.

Sly sighed and pushed up his glasses.

"Is that a yes?" Walter pressed for an answer.

"We could try." Sylvester whispered and turned away from a window, his face all red.

"Pack up your things. I'll... throw this _thing_ away for you." Walt grabbed the black bag from under the bed. At first Sly made a move as if he wanted to stop him, but then lowered his arm and nodded. "See you outside in five." Walter began to leave.

"Thank you."

"Don't. I'm just getting a workmate." Walter glanced back at Sly from the doorstep, smiling, as he typed a text on his phone. _It's impossible to find the robber. Sorry about that._ He scrolled for Spitz's number and hit "Send".


End file.
